News - newspaper articles: August 2005 Archives

This is one for the students in my fall Japanimation and Manga class. A movie theatre just outside of Tokyo is offering discounts to customers who declare themselves 'otaku' or nerds (well, nerd isn't quite the right translation). From the Mainichi Daily News:

Theater offers otaku cheap tickets

Declaring you're an otaku might get you strange looks in some places. But a Japanese movie theater is offering outspoken nerds something positive: a discount....

Otaku culture has become a legitimate field of research in Japan, and a study last year estimated that sales generated by goods targeted at the country's 2.8 million nerds totaled 258 billion yen.

"Densha Otoko" takes so-called geeks into a genre they're not usually associated with: romantic love. The 22-year-old otaku hero turns to a favorite geek refuge in search of girlfriend advice -- the Internet.

From the August 26th MSN-Mainichi Daily News:

"A woman with gender identity disorder, a man suffering serious muscle atrophy, and a woman belonging to a minority ethnic group are set to run in the upcoming House of Representatives election in a bid to represent their fellows in the highest organ of state power."

Japanese Internet apparel retailer ImageNet has come up with a unique way to select new employees. It is granting interviews at a height of 12,388 ft at the summit of Japan's highest, Mount Fuji.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/oukoe_uk_japan_mountain